Linara Dovydaitytė and Oksana Denisenko participated in a discussion on industrial memory at the exhibition “Manifesto of the People‘s Museum” on 7 February 2024. The debate was initiated by the community platform “Backup Stories” based in the National M. K. Čiurlionis Museum of Art (Kaunas, Lithuania).

The idea of the Manifesto of People’s Museum grew out of the exhibition series “The Great Industry” organised by the community platform “Backup Stories”, which has been running since 2017. The exhibitions were directed towards moving the memory of industry out of the margins of history, returning the testimonies and cultural viewpoints of industrial communities back on the map of collective memory, and becoming a megaphone for people’s ideas.

Participants of the discussion: dr Joanna Wawrzyniak, Director of the Center for Research on Social Memory at University of Warsaw, dr Ieva Balčiūnė, researcher at the Lithuanian Institute of History, Sandra Germanavičiūtė, project manager at Tauragė Regional Museum “Santaka”, Gintarė Markevičienė, museum worker at the Alytus Regional Museum, Oksana Denisenko, founder of “Urban Stories – Visaginas”, Žygimantas Menčenkovas, philosopher, member of the Left Alliance, Jurgis Valiukevičius, representative of the May 1st Trade Union, Auksė Petrulienė, curator of the community platform “Backup Stories”. The discussion was moderated by Linara Dovydaitytė.

A video of the discussion is available online:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TL8cliFg0Ww